Category: Hollywood

White washing. It is most certainly an epidemic in today’s entertainment society but when is it too much. The idea of white washing is not a good one, taking a minority character and making it a white character is insulting. It’s much like taking a female character and adapting it to a male character. But when is enough enough. Let’s talk about the ancient one in Dr strange.
The ancient one was an Asian male in the comics. They have taken the ancient one and created a female character of the same name. This is eliminating all male “hero” or main character trends that are layovers from comic books in the Golden and silver age comics. So the ancient one is now a female and has been updated for today’s society making everyone happy….. Or not so much. That wasn’t enough. Now Dr Strange is being bashed for the ancient one being white washed. There is no happy medium. What was needed to avoid this issue? An old Asian man? A black woman? A Latina transsexual? When is enough enough? Why can’t these parts go to the best actor for that part? Does it really matter that the ancient one is a white woman? No. Tilda Swinton absolutely killed in this part, she was great. So as a fan of the comic am I angered that the ancient one is a woman? Of course not. If she played the part shitty and ruined the movie then yes I would have a serious issue…. With the portrayal, not the race or gender of the actor.
When are we as society going to realize that whining and bitching about this will not help the cause? Stop whining about it and make people see that you bring something to the part that warrants a change in gender or race to the character. Movie makers, writers, directors and producers do need to open up to the possibility of changing the race and gender of characters but not because “it’s not fair” or we as a (insert race and gender here) don’t have a enough parts so we should just be given this. What should be made clear is that everyone who is talented enough should be given the chance to play a character and earn the right to play the character.
Life isn’t fair. Work for it.